


Found Love [Where it Wasn't Supposed to Be]

by onefootonego (startingXI)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, director sanvers, tw: references to alcoholism, tw: references to killing someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startingXI/pseuds/onefootonego
Summary: alex doesn't even have to say what she says next, but in the same breath yes she does. alex has too, she needs to let it out because if shedoesn'tsay it, alex is sure the words will eat her alive.[or: alex is never as alone as she thinks she deserves to be. not by a long shot.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [westleigh's](https://westleigh.tumblr.com) tags on [this post](https://westleigh.tumblr.com/post/158342327681)
> 
> and please check the tags guys, if they need to be adjusted, feel free to let me know.
> 
> title taken from _i found_ by amber run.

there's a bottle. 

it sits, hidden away in a very particular cabinet in alex danvers' kitchen. by and large, it remains untouched, 

bar one type of occasion. 

killing someone. alien, human, meta, it doesn't matter. alex keeps a very special type of alcohol around for the nights after the days where she kills someone. sometimes it's the mornings after the nights where she kills someone, but all the same. she comes home. 

she drinks. 

and it feels good. or, at the very least, it doesn't feel like death in her hands, and dying on her shoulders. 

to drink is to let the memories wash over her and around her, letting the memories destroy a little part of her. the memories of killing because god, 

_fuck_

she hates it. it's the part of her job that she can never get back, the pieces of herself she has to give just to keep this city, her family, her sister, and occasionally her whole damn world safe. the pieces that die along with whoever she kills. 

the alcohol helps numb that. 

or it did. 

until the day when alex stood in the middle of her kitchen, maggie on a barstool at the island behind her, lucy sitting up on a counter, not observing or staring her down, 

they're there as a kind of moral support. because that was the day that alex decided she needed to get rid of the alcohol. and it was hard, at first, until lucy slipped off the counter and retrieved the bottle she kept under the bathroom sink. and maggie opened the fridge and placed the entire six pack of ciders into the garbage bag that alex was standing and holding. 

and it sucked, 

and the first few weeks were the hardest, where she ached for a drink, just one. 

[but it was never really just one] 

and the first few weeks had maggie and lucy and kara and james and winn and even j'onn helping, distracting. 

this, today,

is the first time alex has killed someone since she stopped drinking. she's just gotten home, just stepped in the door and she knows she's still got dried blood on her hands, in the creases of her palms where the quick rinse she had at the deo didn't quite reach. 

and that was hours ago. 

killing someone in the field, human, alien or meta, there's a process. and it starts with turning over her weapon, and continues with giving a statement to j'onn, or vasquez, depends on who's involved, who was out in the field with her that day. then there's waiting and and sitting and stewing and then she's cleared, the kill is clean, 

and alex goes home. 

where what transpired next used to included very expensive bourbon, a lack of lights and crawling into bed at the behest of her pounding head and knotted stomach. on the nights when she's had to take a life and she's had both of her girlfriends, the alcohol happens, but less, and there were lights and the tv on playing something soft and something funny. and it's alex in the middle of the couch. 

[and she would always feel so, so loved. but god, she knew even then it's the alcohol that helped her cope the most] 

[hence why it had to go] 

so here's she's standing, craving a drink, and not just one, but a third of a bottle, half. 

hell, the whole damn thing. 

because today wasn't clean. 

or it was, 

but it wasn't because it was a fight for her life and there was no trigger drawn. it was snapping a mans neck and alex hasn't done that before. 

so she wants a drink, or five. 

and she's standing in her apartment, keys hanging in her hand, shoulder pinned back and she can't fucking breath. her legs are locked, like if she relaxes even a little they'll steer her out the door, down the hall, around the corner to the corner store. and sure, they don't sell the good stuff, but any stuff will do. 

anything at all.

and alex's eyes are closed so she doesn't see the bathroom door open. she doesn't really hear maggie step out, dressed in some of lucy's boxers and one of alex's deep red standford long sleeves. but she hears when maggie says gently, quietly 

"babe," 

alex's head snaps up, her eyes shoot open and she's trying to arrange her emotions into something that isn't straight longing for the burn of alcohol on her tongue, down her throat, and the desire for that fire in her stomach. 

"lucy told me." maggie says, padding across the carpet, stepping onto the hardwood and directly in front of alex. she reaches with a hand and takes alex's keys from her stiff hands "lucy should be home soon." maggie promises because alex is shaking. 

shaking from the physical effort of being still. and alex knows, her mind runs back through her sophomore human physiology class, that if she stands like this long enough with muscles locked, her musclovenus pumping mechanism won't be able to work properly and eventually her legs will give out. she could collapse and the blood would flow steady through her legs again, back up to her heart. 

the science distracts her. 

distracts her from maggie gently, gently slipping alex's arms out of her jacket and hanging it up by the hook at the door. and putting alex's keys in the bowl on the counter. 

but the sound of the door opening, the door closing shakes alex back to the present. 

where she hears maggie kiss lucy on the cheek and alex realizes she's still fucking standing in her apartment, unmoving, fucking shaking. and she knows her girlfriends are worried and she knows they care, 

but she feels so pathetic. 

which makes her sigh and move and she's trying to bee-line for the bathroom, to drown in a shower instead of a bottle. but it's lucy's hand on her wrist and it's maggie saying quietly "alex," and alex shaking her head and there are tears in her eyes and she doesn't deserve this.

she killed a man today.

with her bare hands. 

the same hands that lucy is trying to hold and alex shakes her head again because when she closes her eyes she can see the man at her feet. she can feel his neck breaking under the force of her muscles. and even though, 

even though alex knows she had no choice. even though she's sporting a bruised ribcage and what will develop into a nice black eye, she still killed a man. and she does not deserve their concerned voices or their gentle touches.

but these are two of the three people who know her best in the world. 

these are the two people who know what it's like to take a life. who don't judge her for her darkness, or for the skeletons in her closet. 

and some part of alex registers footsteps moving away, across her, behind her. there's the soft hitch of a drawer opening, closing. the metal on metal and the start of the stove. a fridge being opened, almond milk being poured from a container into the pot on the stove. and alex knows, 

she knows it's maggie making hot chocolate. 

and it makes her ache more because it's another thing she doesn't deserve. 

"i-" she starts, from where she's frozen, opening her eyes and trying not to see lucy and all her understanding. 

or feel where maggie is standing, tending to the stove, stirring and pouring because maggie makes the best hot chocolate and she's taught no one, told no one - not even kara who threatened laser eyes - how she does it. 

[besides lucy. besides alex.] 

"i snapped his neck." alex says finally, her voice empty, and her gaze fixed at the wall "and he," she starts "he was going to kill me, he tried to kill me." she says. 

and alex knows maggie will have read the full report, and that lucy isn't allowed to sign off on anything related to alex's work with the deo, but that doesn't mean that lucy can't read it - can't send a photo of it to maggie. 

but alex knows there's video footage. cctv tapes documenting the assault, her ensuing self defense, the way the first thing the man did was rip her gun from her hands. she knows that winn was probably the one who watched the footage, witnessed her kill a man. 

alex doesn't even have to say what she says next, but in the same breath yes she does. alex has too, she needs to let it out because if she _doesn't_ say it, alex is sure the words will eat her alive. 

"i want a fucking drink." she admits, eyes closed. 

"i know." lucy breathes, and lucy's hand finds hers again, lacing their fingers. 

"it's not," alex starts, letting herself get guided to the couch, letting lucy wrap her, wrap them in the softest blanket they have and alex feels like glass "it's not the drink i want." she says "i want to stop thinking, stop feeling." she admits "i want to stop feeling him die." 

because she can feel the moment with every beat of her heart in her hands. 

"i know." lucy breathes and alex knows she knows. 

[lucy has killed, and her scars run deep - not deeper because it's not a competition, but it's lucy who understands. and maggie too, maggie of course, because they've all had to do the unthinkable. but it's lucy who's killed a meta with her bare hands. who had to strangle him to death because he was going to kill, kill her. and god, lucy wore those bruises around her neck for weeks. maggie and alex remember, oh they remember] 

[all in all, death is not something they're unfamiliar with] 

but still alex feels like everything will get cut on her edges and why are they so close, don't they know they'll only get cut? 

yet she can sit with lucy's arms around her, and she can keep her eyes shut and still hear maggie turning off the burner. she can hear maggie pouring three full mugs. and it makes alex want to cry because by this time on any other night, post a killing that violent, that close, 

she would be half a bottle deep and in the dark. 

but instead, she's leaning herself against lucy, and sprawling herself across maggie. and instead of running, or judging, both her girls are here and they're pulling her close, and maggie is handing warm mugs of cocoa to them. and it's not alcohol, but if alex drinks it's this hot, it still burns.

it's a different kind of burn of course. 

all the same maggie sees, so maggie takes the mug gently from her hands. and replaces the space where the mug was with one hand, and lets lucy find alex's left hand. and they're tangled here on the couch, in the soft quiet with the noise of the city rising up to meet them. alex and the women who refuse to let her be alone, who are stronger together than all of her, their collective demons. 

and it's going to be okay. 

[alex falls asleep with her hand against maggie's heart, curled against her ribs. and alex falls asleep with her head on lucy chest - because they help her focus on the living, on life, on their love]

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy it? give me a holler in the comments, or shoot a kudo my way. 
> 
> or! feel free to come chat about supergirl with me @[onefootone](http://www.onefootone.tumblr.com)
> 
> and fun fact, that science about the musculobenus pumping mechanism as as true as i remember it being in my human physiology class years ago. slash also the story my professor told us about how she was in choir practice one day and was standing super rigid and then did pass out, from the above mechanism.


End file.
